Written by: Dan Jurgens
Art by: Patrick Zircher
Publisher: DC Comics
Action Comics starts off strong and never lets up!
Dan Jurgens has weaved an interesting web with Action Comics since the relaunch back last year. Where this book used to be a place to have short Superman stories before, now it has grown in a very impressive platform for connecting the dots throughout the DC universe. It is also a place where we can revisit some of the best if not obscure members of Superman’s rogue gallery.
And who better to have that assemble of villains as his toy-box other than Dan Jurgens, who has been working on Superman for over two decades and more. He understands the small intricacies of these characters and how Man in Blue would deal with these situations. In this issue we are met with some of the rogues that we have already seen, but also reintroducing some of the fan favorites from the time past. It is also very nice to see that they truly went back and kept that certain rogues in the same state they were in even before Rebirth and such not changing those storylines!
This story is two-fold, the first part deals with a family drama between Lois and Clark as they are considering the move back, after the events of Superman Reborn, and other part is the villains coming together and hatching the plan against Superman. Both of these are handled really well, and even though some events happen too quickly, it is not distracting from the main story.
Patrick Zircher here takes reigns of the art, as he was in previous issues of this run. His closeups really fit the book, and once we get to the more action packed sequences of the story, his art will really shine, as it was during the fight with Doomsday in the first arc of this story. The fact that DC is keeping a pretty knit group of guys on this book is also refreshing, as the art styles are never too jarringly different, which is often case with the artists change happens.
Zircher complements all the other artists that worked on this book, Ian Churchill, Doug Manhke and others perfectly and manages to fit within the style for the narrative of the book.
Action Comics has been a pretty solid entry to the Superman books. It is way more action packed than the family oriented Superman title which can be both good or bad depending what the readers view is. But it is refreshing to see that the both books are solid, and both fans of action and drama are satisfied with Superman’s outings.
Overall this issue can be slow at parts, but reintroduction of some of the famous villains really does up the ante for the things that are going to come, and who has been reading this book will not be disappointed!
